Salmon fishermen in Bristol Bay, Alaska, U.S.A., faced another tough season in 2024. For some, the prospects of fishing the bay in future seasons may come down to crunching out the cost of maintaining the commercial fishing lifestyle.
In 2023, it was the gut punch of low ex-vessel prices. This season’s base prices of USD 0.80 (EUR 0.72) per pound among brick-and-mortar processors was slightly higher than last year’s USD 0.50 (EUR 0.45), and some of them bumped prices to USD 1.40 (EUR 1.26) per pound for late fish in hopes of putting up a bigger pack. But, for all sectors of the industry, the harvest volume just wasn’t there.
The total run forecast for Bristol Bay in 2024 had been set at 39 million, which was down from the 10-year average by about one-third. Of that 39 million, the harvest projections had been set at 25 million. This season’s preliminary harvest came in above the projections at 31.5 million.
As for the harvest breakdowns by district, the fabled Nushagak District hit 11.9 million. The Naknek-Kvichak District produced 9.1 million. Egegik came in at 5.1 million, with Ugashik District kicking in another 4.3 million fish.
In terms of ex-vessel revenues, the 2023 harvest generated USD 117 million (EUR 105 million), which crunched out to one-third of the USD 351.7 million (EUR 316.2 million) fishermen were paid in 2022. At an average 5.5 pounds per fish and average ex-vessel prices of USD 1.00 (EUR 0.90) per pound, including incentives, this year’s revenues could add up to around USD 175 million (EUR 157.2 million), still well below the 2022 revenues.
“Lot of long faces out here,” a Bristol Bay fisherman told National Fisherman.
It’s not that the industry hadn’t entertained the notion that someday the streak of record-breaking runs would come to an end. But, the nexus of meager runs and ex-vessel prices that have reverted to what they were in the early 1980s have some fishermen questioning the viability of the Bristol Bay fishery as an occupation.
An appreciable portion of the Bristol Bay fleet in the late 1970s and '80s was comprised of schoolteachers and others whose mainstay professions left them with financial stability and long summer vacations. The latest economic study across all fisheries in Alaska, completed in 2011, showed that 29 percent of some 9,900 permit-holders held other jobs, and 27 percent of the 22,200 deckhands worked other jobs in the off-season.
“I do wish we could do this [study] again, as I would also be curious if the percentage of people holding a second job has gone up in recent years,” Alaska Department of Labor Economist Joshua Warren said.
Funding cuts and other complications have halted more study of the issue in recent years, according to Warren.
Though they were sporadic, Bristol Bay’s heyday seasons of the 1980s and 1990s spawned dockside prices north of USD 1.00 per pound and record runs and harvests. Data from Alaska’s Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission show the average earnings per drift-net permit holder, adjusted for inflation, from 1977 to 1996 stretched from a low of USD 100,000 (EUR 90,000) to USD 275,000 (EUR 247,000), which created an era of fishing as a stand-alone livelihood for many.
Since then, earnings fell sharply, below USD 50,000 (EUR 45,000) per permit, but climbed back into six-digit figures in 2016 and hit a high of around USD 200,000 (EUR 180,000) in 2018. In 2021, average drift permit earnings in Bristol Bay were USD 188,000 (EUR 169,000). They hit an average high of USD 219,000 (EUR 197,000) in 2022, and in 2023, they were USD 105,000 (EUR 94,000).
The combination of weaker runs and depressed ex-vessel prices in recent years may redefine the demographics of fishermen who can afford to stay in the bay, and moreover, determine future entrants into the fishery.
Drift permits at the advent of this year’s season had dropped to around US 130,000 (EUR 117,000), half of what they traded for two years ago, according to Maddie Lightsey, a broker with Alaska Boats and Permits, in Homer, Alaska.
"Drift permits peaked at around USD 260,000 [EUR 234,000] in the spring of 2022," Lightsey said. "Leases topped out around USD 40,000 [EUR 36,000]. By spring of 2023, leases were going for less than USD 30,000 [EUR ], and by June they were at roughly USD 20,000 [EUR 18,000], for a 50 percent cut from the preseason price in 2022. By fall of 2023, permit sales hit USD 130,000 [EUR 117,000], a 50 percent cut from spring of 2022. We haven't really come back from that.”
Lightsey said this season’s weak runs exacerbated a recent severe drop in trading prices for drift permits in the bay.
“This spring leases went for between USD 14,000 to USD 19,000 [EUR 12,600 to EUR 17,000], never hitting USD 20,000 [EUR 18,000], and permit values continued to drop. Our lowest preseason sale was USD 128,000 [EUR 115,000] and our first postseason sale was USD 121,500 [EUR 109,200], which is the lowest we've seen those permits go for since 2016."
Jasen and Danielle Larsgaard, second- and third-generation Bristol Bay fishers, have been running a set net operation far up the Nushagak since they were both 7 years old. Now, their 7-year-old son Jasen Larsgaard Jr. stands to become a fourth-generation set netter.
The Larsgaards hold multiple jobs between them to keep their fishing lifestyle afloat during the year, but during the summer, they put their jobs and other commitments on hold. Like the salmon, they return each year to ensure that their son grows up to learn the skills of living and working the bay’s bountiful waters.
“Even with the USD 0.50 price last year, raising a next generation fisherman is top priority and keeps us coming back to the bay each summer,” Danielle Larsgaard said. “To see what my son retained from last year and how he advanced this year was by far the coolest thing – his eagerness to learn and to try things. He will make a great captain in the future, and we’re hoping he takes all that his dad and I teach him on the water to heart and appreciates the fishing lifestyle we love so much.”
